


Opening Hours

by timeheist



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Multi, Spoilers for TATM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/timeheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I like the accent you have.” Craig stumbled into the doctor, who carefully slung an arm around his waist. “I like a lot of thi- Sophie says it’s okay.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixDragon/gifts).



Two months after the Ponds, the Doctor returned to Earth.

He made a few routine stops along the way; checking in with UNIT and letting them know not to listen to any gossip refuelling in Cardiff and avoiding Jack, and visiting a graveyard or ten or twelve. It didn’t pay to be lax in his duties, be they work or friendship. Not paying attention to the little things had lost him Amy and Rory, and Charley, and Sarah-Jane, the Brigadier, Rose…

Besides, it wouldn’t harm anyone if he dallying a little getting back on the horse after it threw him. No one important, anyway, just himself. But when the Doctor finally ran out of ways in which to procrastinate his way through modern-era earth without having to talk to anyone, he picked up the phone and chose a number to dial at random.

In the end he dialled three numbers, before he finally plucked up the courage to honour the wishes of his wife and mother-in-law and actually let the phone ring out.

It took a while for someone to pick up. The Doctor had been about to hang up on his fourth number when with a click and a rattling scramble a voice at the other end finally said – “Hello?”

“Ah!” The Doctor’s face fell. “Small… Child. Must’ve been a wrong number.” He ran a hand through his fringe and held the phone at arm’s length, glowering as though it was to blame. Nope. All eleven digits all there on the screen, in the right order. He leaned against the TARDIs console and frowned. “Are your parents in?”

“Mum’s doing the laundry.” The small sounds-like-a-boy already sounded bored, ready to put the phone down. “Not-Mum’s-“

“Not-Mum?”

“Dad.” The boy sniffed messily. The Doctor’s brow furrowed even deeper in thought. Not-Mum. Of course. Had to be the right number. At least he hadn’t started with ‘Milk Thing’ this time. “Dad’s cooking.”

“Can I speak to Dad then?” The Doctor stared into the rising and falling green cylinder with a fond smirk. Last time ‘Dad’ had cooked, ‘Mum’ had cleaned up the mess. “Dads are brilliant.”

“But I’m not supposed to talk to stra-“

“I’m not a stranger I’m the Doctor. Come along Po- Stormie.” The Doctor paused and grinned. “Take me to your Dad.”

The line fell silent with a deafening clattered. The Doctor wished he’d brought a Rubik’s Cube or something. Maybe a book on knitting patterns to read. People were all so slow on the phone! How could they do that? It felt like hours had passed, and when the Doctor finally heard hurried footsteps and a quick, panting voice at the end of the line he skipped on the spot and grinned broadly at the receiver. The voice was familiar. Very familiar, and very fond.

“Hello? Look, if this is about missing Sophie’s antenatal classes I’ve been really-“

“Shut up, Craig.”

The line went silent. The Doctor grinned.

“What happened to Dr Martin?”

“Have you replaced me?” The Doctor kicked the spring of phone cable under the console and slumped into the captain’s chair with a pout. “I’m hurt, Craig. And after everything between us.”

Craig’s voice rose in pitch. “Alfie said it was someone from the doctors!”

“Stormie,” The Doctor pauses. Alfie was a stupid name, Stormageddon was much better. “Is rubbish at passing on messages, then.” With the phone held under one ear, the Doctor crossed his arms and rested his chin on his chest. “How are you, Craig?”

“Me?” Craig sounded surprised, stammering and spluttering. The Doctor could picture the incredulous look on his face, eyes wide and jaw slack. Brilliant, humble Craig. “I’m fine.” He paused for thought. “Got a new job, Sophie’s been going t-“

“Good, good, very interesting.” The Doctor flapped his hand and lurched forward. “Can I come for dinner then?”

“What?!”

“Seven o’clock? Perfect. I’ll bring fish custard.”

Without letting Craig finish, the Doctor dropped the phone back to its simple green cradle and propped his feet up on the console. He closed his eyes, pressing his thumbs to the sockets with a heavy, old sigh. Don’t be alone, they had told him, don’t be alone.

Alone was so much easier.


	2. Chapter 2

So far as the Doctor was concerned he’d done nothing wrong. It was seven o’clock now and no, Craig, he wasn’t late at all. In fact, he’d arrived half an hour early for dinner so as not to inconvenience anyone. What was so important about what date it was?

Sophie ordered food in; she hadn’t defrosted enough food for four people and a baby, especially when one was a petulant child and the other an overgrown twelve year old alien. Or so Sophie insisted, much to Craig’s dismay as all attempts at sweet-talking their guests into thinking they weren’t being snapped at were met by amused, knowing grins from Sophie and confused, petulant looks from the Doctor. Things perked up when the curry arrived, which was decent enough but, the Doctor decided, far too mild, and dessert went down a treat with Alfie. Fish custard, just as the Doctor had promised. In fact, Alfie liked fish custard so much that after eating four or five fingers Sophie directed Craig to a bottle of wine and took him and the baby to bed before they got ill.

Left alone on the sofa with Craig, the Doctor flung his arms about behind their heads and made himself more comfortable. Craig downed his first glass of red wine, poured another, and then without even batting an eyelash looked the Doctor straight in the eye across the sofa he’d tried so hard not to be sitting on. The Doctor politely – so he told himself – chugged his wine too, his nose wrinkling and his brow furrowing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why is anything wrong?” Craig sighed, and filled the Doctor’s glass, plainly ignoring the trademark scowl-at-the-companions-until-they-stop-it frown. He was good at ignoring it, too. A keeper, if the Doctor was still doing that kind of thing. He almost cracked a grin. “Can’t I just come over for tea?”

“Last time,” Craig continued, unheralded. “It was cybermats.” He snorted. “The time before that, the world was ending and Sophie was running away with monkeys and this time,” He jabbed a finger accusingly. “You’re nine months late.”

“Nine months, nine minutes, what’s the difference?”

“Quite a lot,” Craig insisted, putting his feet up on the glass coffee table, “When you’re human.” The Doctor’s features deflated. Craig’s brow furrowed to fill the empty space as Craig sat upright once more and stared at the Doctor more intently, gesturing with his wine glass. His ankles crossed on the table. “What happened?”

“The Ponds, Craig.” When he finally answered, after a gap too long even for a human, the Doctor’s voice was quiet. Too quite, and too slow. “They ceased to happen, and that is what is wrong.”

Mouth open and ready to reassure, Craig froze. “They’re not-“

“Yes. No.” The Doctor scowled and tugged at a dry lip. “Not exactly. Try and keep up.”

“But you didn’t-“

“They’re gone. Amelia’s final farewell. And that’s that.” The Doctor closed his eyes. “I hate endings.”

There was a long silence, the Time Lord and the human lost in their thoughts with only the barest of physical contact between them. One of the Doctor’s hands, arms splayed across the sofa, resting at the nape of Craig’s neck and Craig’s knee, leg fidgety with thought, tapping lightly against the Doctor’s. Neither man seemed to notice, and though the Doctor did, absently, he didn’t care. Craig was one of his and this was what friends did, wasn’t it? He’d always been this close with Amy and Rory.

Eventually the baby began to cry, and someone – probably Stormie – stomped their feet on the roof above. Craig cleared his throat and took another sip of wine, and the Doctor opened his eyes with a faint quirk of his lips, stretching his legs so that his and Craig’s knees still touched.

“Do you want to talk about it?” The Doctor stared intently at Craig in response, and the man began to blush. “Look, you don’t have to or anything it’s just if you want to.” Craig bit his lip. “Anyway, you’ve still got me.” The Doctor tried not to visibly freeze, eyes snapping up to meet Craig’s. “M-me and Sophie, I mean.”

The Doctor pursed his lips, studying Craig attentively and, as an afterthought, plucked the sonic screwdriver from his coat. He scanned the length of Craig’s body before lifting it to his eyes and leaning right into Craig’s face with apparent satisfaction. His hand grasped the sofa behind the man’s head and with a start, the Doctor realised he could feel Craig’s hitched breathing against his jaw. He licked his lips and maintained eye contact, relaxing his features into less of a scowl as his fingers curled against the man’s neck to rest more comfortably. Craig’s breath steadied slowly.

“Do I Craig? Do I really?” The Doctor adjusted his bowtie with a sad smile, and Craig shut his mouth. “I’m getting old, all my friends are dying or leaving or already gone.” He sighed. “I’m losing them. What good’s a legend without the supporting cast?”

“I… see?” The roof above them creaked again, the bedroom door clicking shut and the whirr of the baby monitor accompanying Sophie down the stairs. Craig awkwardly patted the Doctor’s shoulder and cleared his throat, glancing around the gangly man and into the kitchen. He hummed, and turned back. “Look, do you wanna come to the pub tomorrow? Me and the footie team. I’ll write down the date for you this time so you don’t-“

The Doctor gripped Craig’s knee before he could stand up to get a pen and paper. “Yes. Yes I’d love to.” He squeezed the denim-clad leg before leaping to his feet and grabbing his lapels smartly. Red-faced and frozen, Craig blinked. “I’ll see you at the pitch!”

The Doctor was already out the patio door before Sophie got back to the living room to find Craig yelling at an empty room.

“I said come to the pub, not the pitch!”

Sophie hit him over the back of the head. “You’re gonna wake the baby.” She glanced down at his lap. “And is that a banana in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”


	3. Chapter 3

It didn’t blow up at least, but the Colchester Arms did pay host to three separate alien invasions on pub night. The boys from football decided to amble off to a club after the Malkavian Embassy had been escorted back to his ship, leaving the Doctor to chaperone Craig back home to Sophie, Stormie, and Princess Crystal, Queen of the Unicorns. Frankie, he was supposed to call her. He was a light-weight really. The Doctor had bought almost all the rounds because he’d let Craig’s team win the match on purpose, and he’d drank twice as much as anyone else because social etiquette called for him to be disappointed in his loss.

Honestly, it was all so embarrassing. He couldn’t take Craig anywhere.

“You’re a good man, Doctor.” Craig hiccupped. “Man, alien… You are male, right?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Thass’ good.” Craig grinned, burying his face in the Doctor’s shoulder with a relaxed hum. The Doctor lifted his arm to look down at him, and smiled pleasantly. He liked it when his companions were happy, even when they were slurring. He especially liked it when the ones like Craig were happy. The ones who didn’t deserve his intervention in his lives and had happy, normal – boring – lives. The Doctor lowered his arm as he decided that maybe he should try it too, every once in a while. A happy, normal, boring life. “Feel like a bit of an idiot, otherwise…”

The Doctor shrugged. “Alien anatomy. Looks human, but I could have a second head.” Craig blinked. “Funny-shaped…” Both men paused in mutual thought, and blushed. “Apparatus. Not that you’ve seen it. Easy thing to question really.” The Doctor coughed to stop himself babbling even further. “One companion thought I couldn’t be an alien because I had a Northern accent. Wonderful girl, Rose Tyler.”

“You don’t have a Northern accent.” Craig poked the Doctor in the chest.

“Old me.” He grinned, all teeth. “I got better.”

“I like the accent you have.” Craig stumbled into the doctor, who carefully slung an arm around his waist. “I like a lot of thi- Sophie says it’s okay.”

“Liking my accent?” The Doctor paused. “Odd thing to talk about.”

“No, having a crush on you.” Craig nuzzled the Doctor’s collar. “Silly.”

“When I told you I was an alien did you think I should’ve been gre- what?”

The Doctor blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that. Or rather, he’d been expecting it, but not right now. He’d expected Craig to dally around the point and never actually reach it, like he had when he’d courted Sophie, and then perhaps bring it up ten years later when it was a bit useless and the Doctor had a new face or something. He hadn’t expected him to just blurt it out with an adorable grin on his face like that. Lowered inhibitions, he supposed. Alcohol – yet another reason not to drink it! If the Doctor’s inhibitions lowered any further then he might do something stupid like turn to Craig and say:

“At least it’s mutual then.”

“Huh?”

The two men ground to a halt at the end of the road, eyes locked on each other. The Doctor stretched out his arms, holding Craig up by the shoulders and resisting – by great strength of willpower, he thought. Call him old-fashioned but he was over a thousand years old these days – the urge to pull him in and hold him a little closer while he could. He’d not hugged anyone since Amy and Rory. He’d had sex (River had suggested Jack’s method of dealing with grief and it had worked at the time) and he’d been handcuffed (once or twice at the same time as the sex) but no hugging, no hand-holding…

That settled it. Reaching down, he grabbed, desperately slowly, for Craig’s hand, pulling him just close enough to plant a kiss to the knuckles that had been bruised in the football game, and the cut on the back of his thumb – tiny, really – from the second alien invasion. He didn’t make eye contact, but his gaze settled on the bemused – but not upset, or angry, thank Gallifrey – smile on Craig’s face. He had Sophie’s permission. Craig had a crush on him. So long as he didn’t take advantage, this could be good for the both of them… But as he let go of Craig’s hand to slow himself down, the man stepped forward, tilting his head with a scowl of betrayal, just in time to tumble forward with a hiccup and barrel them both to the ground.

The Doctor stumbled and fell, throwing up his arms just that second too late to save them both from the fall. They pitched over the low wall bordering someone’s garden, the Doctor gripping Craig in a loose embrace and trying to at least fall well. He gasped, shoulders hitting the grass hard – but not hard enough to injure, really – and Craig hitting his torso just as hard a millisecond later.

“Craig are you o-“ The human chuckled, almost a giggle really, then laughed. He turned his head belatedly to muffle the noise in the Doctor’s neck, apparently conscious of the rustling from the house they’d fallen beside and the lights turning on in the living room, the curtains peeling back. Not that he seemed to care; the Doctor squeaked as Craig cheerfully wrapped his arms around the Doctor’s neck and the Doctor’s arms began to flail. “Ah – not the best ah – time and pla- Craiiiig!!”

The Doctor’s legs jack-knifed up in shock as Craig’s lips found his neck, sloppy and wet and damn it, only River knew he had that thing about people touching his neck. Well, River and Jack, but only River was supposed to know, thank you very much. The Doctor’s knees folded, his feet finding the ground once more and he calmed down enough to let his palms fall from the air to Craig’s midriff, gripping his side firmly and gently pushing him upright.

“Doctor, don’t y-“

“Ssh.” Sitting with Craig on his lap, sprawled and starting to sober up, the Doctor pressed his fingertips to the man’s lips and tried to ignore the kicked puppy dog look in his eyes. He hated being the person to cause those eyes. He would do a lot of things to turn them into puppy dog with a new toy eyes. “I’m sorry. Just… not right now.” He pressed his palm to the side of Craig’s cheek, resting his forehead against his friend’s. “You beautiful man.”

“Me?” Craig closed his eyes, blushing but not pulling back. “You’re the man who saves the world, I’m just the married footballer with a crush.” He paused. “Oh god, what is Sophie going to say?”

A correction was in order. “I’m the man who saves the world with friends.” The hall light turned on as the curtains swished shut, lock clicking back as the front door was thrown open by an angry man in a bright red dressing gone holding a mobile phone to his ear. The Doctor opened his mouth, and shut it again with an excited, delighted grin. “Speaking of which!” The Doctor shoved Craig off his lap, kissed him once, quick and hard, and then with the grace of a drunken giraffe pulled the man back to his feet and took off. “Rule number one: run!”


	4. Chapter 4

“You, Craig Owen, are an absolute plank.”

Craig had heard his wife call him many things before. A plank was not one of them. He opened one eye where he had passed out of on the couch, and closed it again quickly. Oh gods above what had he drunk last night and why was the living room so bright? Had the boys taken him home, or had he found his own way home? He barely even remembered. And what exactly was the soft, breathing bundle underneath his legs that was starting to-

“Argh!”

“Shush!”

The newspaper caught Craig in the nose before he was even saw it coming and he clasped his hands to his face with a barely stifled yelp, staring from his wife, reproachfully, to the lightly dozing – probably faking it – Doctor at the other end of the sofa. The Doctor rolled over, mumbling in an unfamiliar language, and Sophie planted herself on the arm behind Craig’s head, shaking her head with that annoyingly knowing look she sometimes had on her face when she’d come to a decision. The baby bounced on her hip, happily asleep, and Sophie rested her cheek in her hand.

“You really are blind, aren’t you?”

Craig’s face fell, blush rising to his cheeks with the speed of a tsunami. How had she worked it out so quickly? The kiss, the talk, the sloppy make-out session on the sofa and the hasty removal of clothing? Well, he supposed the last one was obvious, since neither of them had a shirt on, Craig was wearing the Doctor’s bowtie, and Craig was only in his rocket ship boxers. They hadn’t actually – actually – 

“We haven’t actually done nothing…”

“Anything.” Sophie acknowledged Craig gently, with only a hint of sadness in her voice, and Craig felt himself dropping his head, immediately more ashamed. “Done anything – Christ, Craig, even Alfie has better grammar than you do.”

“Well Alfie is going to be a smart one, he is, not a footballer like his dad.”

“Is that so?” Sophie raised an eyebrow. “And is he going to have latent homosexual attraction to his time travelling friends like his dad or is he going to man up like his mum and ask if he can go shag the alien for a couple of weeks?”

Craig’s jaw dropped. “I – I – “

“It’s bloody obvious, you idiot.” Sophie lent in, planting a kiss on Craig’s forehead and fingering the bowtie around his neck. She began to loosen it while she talked, slipping it from his neck with the kind of easy-going warmth that had made him want to marry her in the first place. “You’ve been pining for him since he left the first time and you even wanted to name the baby after him.” Craig blushed further. “If I honestly cared would I have let your little crush go on as long as I have?”

“I – I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

“Not possible, dear.” She laughed, taking a moment to pull back and rock little Frannie. Baby slept like a log, just like Alfie. Craig wondered for a moment if the Doctor had worked his magic and asked her to behave for not-mum and milk-thing like he had with Alfie… Dad and Mum, he meant. The thought, and Sophie’s laugh, made him chuckle too, extraditing his legs from the Doctor’s and trying to stand up despite the encroaching hangover to follow Sophie into the kitchen. “And really. I don’t mind.”

“What?”

“He likes you too, you know.”

An hour later, after the talk, the silence dragged on, Craig pouring the off-milk down the fridge and opening a new carton as Sophie poured water into the kettle and began to boil a couple of cups of coffee. By now Alfie was awake and bothering the Doctor, who left the married couple to it with what almost seemed to be an air of embarrassment. Neither Craig nor Sophie looked in the other’s eye, each trying to work out what the other meant, what they themselves were thinking. Craig couldn’t believe that his wife was alright with him snogging the Doctor – that she’d even suggested she shag him! Was she telling the truth? Did she still love him? He still loved her, despite what had happened last night… If Sophie claimed it wasn’t really cheating, then maybe…

“Go to him.” Sophie finally broke the silence, explaining everything in three quite, emotional words. “Bugger off for a couple of months, get it out of your system. I’ll go stay with gran; maybe take the kids out to see the monkeys.”

Craig stared straight at her, straight into her, and nodded, his jaw firm. A smile crept onto his lips.

“I bloody love you.”

“I know. Just be back by dinner time, alright?”

“Dinner time when?” Craig frowned, taking a sip of his too hot coffee, tilting his head to one side.

“Dinner time when you’re ready. Just give us a call, alright? Don’t pick up that bad habit, too.” She paused, and then it was Sophie’s turn to blush, taking things far too much in her stride. Though that was always Sophie, Craig reasoned. The adventurous one. The experimenter. Exactly the kind of person to propose that an open marriage could be good for them both and actually, she was kind of turned on by the idea of her husband kissing another man… “I already looked out a suitcase.”

“Are you that eager to get rid of me?” Craig’s voice broke as he laughed and Sophie put her hand on his arm, squeezing softly. He put his hand on top of hers, stroking the digits, turning her wedding ring around under his thumb and subconsciously, if warily, leaning in for a kiss. Sophie put her other hand on his face and leant into it, long, passionate, forgiving and open. Craig pulled back a few minutes later, flushed and smiling. “…You could come with us you know.”

“Oh he’s not my type. Too much ears and hair.”

“You should have seen his last face.” Craig’s mind flashed to their first introduction, and a ninth – ninth? – regeneration that had been pretty attractive too. “More ears, less hair.” Sophie blinked in confusion and Craig shook his head, smiling fondly. “What would I do without you?”

“Let that idiot go off on his own again.” Sophie kissed Craig’s nose, then turned him around with a third mug of coffee and slapped him on the arse. “Go get him, tiger.”


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor didn’t often fall through the TARDIS door but when he did, he was usually glad that he and River had an incredibly open marriage. He’d cleared things with her about him and Craig pretty quickly, though why he’d worried at all, the Doctor wasn’t sure. River had a string of Time Agents on retainer for those moments where their diaries didn’t match up for a couple of weeks, after all, and he was fine with that. So if he was going to take a companion – quite literally – for an indeterminable amount of weeks then River wasn’t going to kick up a fuss, either. Besides, apparently Craig was in the diary. River won’t tell him when; the Doctor sometimes wondered why he let her get away with so much.

Craig for his part had fussed somewhat when the Doctor had told him that he was married too – humans and their customs – but they’d managed to find a way around it. Which meant that they kept themselves so well occupied, either running around the universe or staying in bed, to let it become a nuisance.

Besides, Craig had made it quite clear that he wasn’t in this for the long run and he hoped the Doctor wasn’t either. This was a little thing between the two of them, working out their feelings and then going back to their spouses (maybe meeting up for a romp on Tuesdays and Christmas dinners). He was only going to stay for a couple of months, and the Doctor had offered to drop him off at home before the kids even knew he was missing. Which was maybe just as well. Too soon after the Ponds, and all that.

“Barcelona?”

“Always meant to take a friend there.” The Doctor shrugged, spinning away from his thoughts and the TARDIS door and swinging back to the console and the companion he had stolen away for a little while. Just like he always did. “Why not you?”

“Isn’t Spain a bit… boring?”

The Doctor rested his chin on Craig’s shoulder, looking over him to glance at the random coordinates that the TARDIS had provided for them this time. Not what he was expecting. A laugh broke out of his throat, warm and loud, and he realised that finally, it wasn’t too soon after the Ponds. Here he was, on another adventure, in another bed (well, sharing the same bed with someone else and occasionally visiting his and, he realised, finally realising why the Ponds hadn’t appreciated the bunk bed) and actually… he was happy. River and Amy, they’d both been right. He needed somebody. Especially a friend.

“It is a bit boring, isn’t it…” The Doctor reached around, brushing Craig’s hip briefly and tapping in a new set of coordinates. Barcelona popped up once more and his grin widened. “I wasn’t expecting Spain. Didn’t you go there for your honeymoon?” Craig nodded. “That’ll be it. Sexy,” The Doctor patted the TARDIS console, “She’s a sentimental old girl.” As if by response the lights dimmed, then flashed, and more men briefly winced and shaded their eyes. “How about Barcelona 2085, with blue grass and dogs with two noses? Much more interesting.”

“Two… noses?”

The Doctor spun around to catch Craig’s front as the man tilted his head to one side, clearly confused. He laughed, using a touch of the River-learnt charm to plant a quick kiss to the man’s forehead, leaning down, and then reach to clasp the fingers of his hand, as though to make sure that he was still there.

“Maybe they think it’s weird you only have one.”

Craig laughed, pressing his head against the Doctor’s and smiling contentedly. “I bloody love you.”

“Good thing Sophie bloody loves monkeys.” The Doctor winked, stole a kiss on the lips, and with a downward thrust of the lever on the console started to drag Craig back towards the TARDIS’ catacomb of rooms. “Now, what do you say we go and, ah…” He blushed, and getting the idea, so did Craig. River would have laughed and laughed. “Go and pass the time until we land?”

Craig smirked, sticking out his tongue and running his heels into the ground. “We’re in a time machine. What time?”

“What reason not to enjoy it, you mean.”

The Doctor’s grin widened and in that moment, not one person mattered more than his current travelling companion, and all was well with the world.


End file.
